The Heart of the Wood (poem)

Photo: © Channel Light Vessel

First post

I’m going to start this blog with an Irish poem I found a while ago somewhere in the recesses of the internet. It’s anonymous, and if I remember rightly, it’s a translation from the Gaelic. The poem’s artless purity certainly feels very old, a voice from a wild forested Ireland of centuries ago, though there is no date.  The defiant, passionate hope in it, especially the last line, is timeless. 


The Heart of the Wood

My hope and my love,
we will go for a while into the wood, 
scattering the dew,
where we will see the trout,
we will see the blackbird on its nest;
the deer and the buck calling,
the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches;
the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green;
and death will never come near us for ever in the sweet wood. 

Anon.